


Hindsight

by twofaced_cesario



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: Gen, References to Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-29
Updated: 2013-04-29
Packaged: 2017-12-09 22:51:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/778880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twofaced_cesario/pseuds/twofaced_cesario
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In hindsight, Slick should've thought things through more. In hindsight, Droog should've kept a better eye on things. In hindsight, Hearts should've hit harder. In hindsight, Deuce should've told them it's okay. Hindsight is always 20/20.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hindsight

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted in four parts on [tumblr](http://twofacedcesario.tumblr.com/tagged/fanfiction).

**♠**

In hindsight, Slick should’ve thought things through before opening the vault. Maybe because of his policy of ‘stab first, ask questions later.’ Droog would’ve said that it was a terrible policy and cited how it has screwed things over in the past…But fuck Droog and his analytical thinking.

That line of thought didn’t help when he remembered that Droog, along with the rest of the crew, is gone. Now he’s surrounded by a metric fuckton of dumb-ass leprechauns who know jack shit about doing things right, a particularly sassy mouthed upstart who really needs a kick in the pants, and a dame that keeps distracting him from what needs to be done.

(Damn, she’s good looking.  _Focus, Slick._ )

He was having a hard time focussing these days. The cybernetics didn’t mesh well with his organic brain, which was already more scattered than a jigsaw puzzle in the middle of a sandstorm. Remembering things was hard too. There were times he wondered where the purple buildings were from, what a terrier dog magazine was doing in his inventory, why he loved stabbing things and hated the sight of the black pin still left in the voodoo doll….Who those three people were, and why he felt like they were some of the most important guys he’d ever met.

Why was it that the littlest one annoyed the shit out of him, and yet he had the deepest respect over the way he caused destruction? That he was willing to put up with all his hyperactive antics, and worried whenever an explosion went off too soon?

Why was it the largest one was the scariest fucker that he ever met, but he still called him a goddamn pansy for blubbering all the time over shitty…somethings? Can’t remember what. Why did he often join him in watching those shitty somethings even when he’d just complain about everything that happened in them?

Why was it that even though the tall thin one was one of the most infuriating bastards he had ever met, who pointed out his every single flaw, who would always turn away when Slick was in a particularly motivated mood to light a cigarette…Why the hell did he think that that tall motherfucker was his best friend and the  _only_  person that he could rely on, no matter what?

Just who were those bastards? Why did he feel that, once upon a time, they were his rock, his anchor in this fucked up universe?

But in moments of clarity, Slick could recall everything. The names of each of his Midnight crew. Why he put up with them. Why he cared. Why those days that were now long gone were so fucking important. Why he had so much fun going around wrecking the City that they had all worked so damn hard to build back up. Why he found the green torsos so fucking infuriating in how pathetic they were compared to his band of three brothers.

And in those moments, when he had the hindsight, Slick wondered why he didn’t think shit through before opening that goddamn, motherfucking vault.

 

 

**♦**

In hindsight, Droog should’ve kept a better eye on things. Even in the calm after Eggs and Biscuits were beaten, he should have kept a watch out for greater threats. He paid the price in getting punched away by Cans.

When he regained his senses, a week from the conflict, he was confused, disorientated. He didn’t know what he was supposed to get…or why he was even bothering in the first place, when he had no idea how the others were. 

He left the store quickly, heading to the hideout where he knew that the others should be. His mind was jumbled still, conflicting memories and gaps fighting for dominance. His last conscious memories were of fighting his way through the Felt Manor. His mind was telling him he had been living the past week in a stupor because-

He dropped down the manhole that lead down to the hideout, not bothering with the ladder. It was more for Slick and Deuce’s benefit anyways, since he and Boxcars could easily heft themselves out without too much trouble. His fist automatically slammed the button that would close the hole for him, without the need to pull it in manually, and he looked.

Empty. The uphended table still had the knife in it, but the heist plan was torn right off, its bits scattered on the floor along with the dice and chips that previously occupied the surface. The doors to each of the other member’s rooms were closed shut, with a weapon embedded each into them. And suddenly, his mind supplied his memories right.

Boxcars was sent into another timeline after trying to calm Cans down with some meat. Simply punched out of existence without any sort of way to return. Either he was gone years into the past or in the future, but there was no way to tell if it was many or a few.

Slick had taken the crowbar and attempted to pry open the vault. Temporal energies surrounded him for just a moment, before he was vanished away, without any indication of what just happened. The vault was perfectly intact, but Clover was freaking out. Droog had absconded after that, supposedly, after his mind (or body? Can’s power never really made sense to you) was gone into the future.

Deuce was the only one who wasn’t sent away. He had gone off to wheel Biscuits away and missed everyone’s departure. He was found by Clover later, who flicked his coin and brought Quarters over. You found his corpse after that. He’s the only member who found a place in the graveyard.

Droog, or at least his unconscious self had spent the past week in a daze. What time he didn’t spent raging and letting his temper out, on the table, on the plans in the kitchen, wherever, he spent simply smoking in his room, staring blankly at the ceiling. Hell, the only reason he went to the grocery store was to pick up something because his body was protesting, demanding sustenance.

He stood quietly in the wreckage, staring at the empty hideout, mind reeling from these memories, flowing into his mind and threatening to make him snap. To make him lose control. But he’s Diamonds Droog. He’s a stone cold man who does not let his emotions show if he can help it.

There is a soft noise behind him, and he takes out a pistol, pointing it at the source. A small, green figure stood at the entrance, just by the ladder, adjusting his little purple hat on his head. Clover looked at the wreckage of the hideout, then to Droog. Neither of them spoke for a time.

Then Clover gave him a crooked smile, large eyes looking oddly tired. “I don’t know if it would be lucky for you to miss or not.” He sounded older. Probably because his whole gang is dead, save for probably Cans. Droog said nothing, simply keeping his weapon trained on the green fucker. Clover let out a soft giggle that was a bit too high pitched and maniacal.

“What’s so funny?” Droog kept his voice flat. Clover just kept giggling as he sat down on the ground.

“All of this!” The leprechaun looked up at him, and Droog saw madness in his eyes. “This… The answer! To the ultimate riddle! I got it! I finally got it!” He was laughing now, and Diamonds’ finger tightened on the trigger. Clover grinned brightly at him and there were tears in his eyes. “We’re doomed. We’ve always been doomed!”

“Going to have to be more specific, funny man.”

Clover stood up and skipped over to Droog, hardly paying a mind to the gun trained to his head. “We were never supposed to exist. Haa haa. Never ever. We thought we were the true timeline. Hee hee… I thought we were, because we had things a lot better than everything else! Hoo hoo… We survived the longest, all of us, that must have meant that we were the Alpha!” Clover jabbered on, punctuating his words with little broken giggles as the tears streamed down his cheeks. “But I was wrong! I was so…fucking wrong! Hahaha! We just hee hee… we just were supposed to contribute. To let Slick over. Ha ha. And the rest of us….” His words stopped, to let those sob-giggles out. Droog would almost feel sorry for him, if he knew what the hell he was going on about. Eventually the giggling stopped, and Clover did something that the ex-agent would never expect. His tiny arms wrapped around Droog’s legs, and he started to cry. “…It was all a big, fucking joke.” Droog said nothing through all this, and simply stared at the little Felt, wondering what the hell he meant, what the Alpha was or…how things should have gone. 

He found himself asking a question. “What happens now?”

Clover just looked up at him and gave him that tired smile. “Now? We’re just doomed. We die. That’s all that Paradox space has left for us to do.” He reached up with a tiny hand and pulled the gun against his head, looking up at him expectantly. Droog doubted it would do much. Weapons always jammed whenever Clover was around. He didn’t even think before pulling the trigger.

In hindsight, he probably should’ve kept a better eye on things, looked for signs they fucked up. He thought this as he lit up a cigarette, trying to ignore the bloodied mess that Clover made over his pants and the ground. In hindsight, he probably should’ve thought things through even more than he already did. Maybe they wouldn’t have ended up in this situation if he did. He thought this pulled his pistol out from the loose grip and looked at it for a moment. He took a deep inhale for his cigarette, then held the weapon to his head.

Maybe the next time around, they wouldn’t need hindsight.

 

 

**♥**

In hindsight, Boxcars should’ve hit harder. He wasted too much time with Eggs and Biscuits. He should’ve tried to kill Cans rather than calm him down with the corpse of a friend.

He had a lot of time to reflect when he was stuck in that horse calender, hoping that it was just last year’s. He had time to create plans, not his strong point, on what to do when he got back.

He was going to first off, shout at Slick for not kissing Sn0wman. And then expect him to come up with a better idea on how to hit the Felt.

Next, he would make sure Droog gets more wax lips on the next grocery run. He was almost running out. Oh, and to stop reading his newspaper during Soap Opera time.

Then, he would help Deuce out with his bomb making, help him practice being a hardboiled criminal. He still needed to clean up his whole badass act, after all.

But as time went by, he came to realize that he never was going back. And he also realized he was really sick of raw horse meat.

He tried to jump ahead, move through months by hopping around. It was an easy thing to do. But at the end, he simply saw nothing. He was pretty much just trapped there.

Boxcars sat there quietly, at the end of the end, staring at nothing. The horses were all gone by now. He’d just wither here, without a way to return. Without a way to fix things for the better. Without being able to see the others again, to not know if they were fine or not. Sure, Droog was punched ahead in time, but Slick? Deuce? Were they fine? He'd never know.

In hindsight, he probably should’ve hit things harder, since he can’t anymore, to make things better. In hindsight, he should’ve kept an eye on things, since he won’t anymore. In hindsight…he probably should’ve thought things through more, instead of leaving it to Droog. Four minds were always better than one, after all.

He thinks this, even as he stares at the white expanse of nothing.

 

 

**♣**

In hindsight, they did all they could. Deuce saw this when no one else did.

Sure, Slick should’ve thought things through better before he opened the vault, but that’s just Slick! He always charges headlong into fights, trusting the Crew to have his back. It’d make sense for him to do the same for the vault; expect them to follow him along. They made it this far with his charging, why wouldn’t he expect it to be as reliable as ever?

Sure, Droog could’ve kept a better eye on things, he planned out the attack perfectly. It wasn’t his fault that things just spiralled out of control. Cans appearing messed things up, but that wasn’t Droog’s fault. Keeping the plans together and in motion was hard enough, especially when dealing with a bunch of time travelling ruffians. He did the best he could with what he had.

Sure, Boxcars could’ve hit harder, but what good would that do? Eggs and Biscuits wore him down pretty roughly in that time travel clusterfuck. If it were Deuce, he would’ve had trouble standing up after dealing with them! Boxcars is a strong guy, but he’s not a superhero. (Or at least Deuce doesn’t think so. He might be wrong on this.)

But only Deuce really saw this, and he couldn’t tell the others what he saw. Not just because they always think that he was too optimistic about everything, but because he just couldn’t reach them. He tried to talk to Droog when he was asleep, but his mind was elsewhere (probably still time travelling. How did that even work? Deuce never managed to ask Cans about that.) and to Slick when he was konked out, but his mind was too hazy from the drugs to even acknowledge it was a dream. Boxcars never slept during that time he spent in the calendar, or if he did, Deuce never found him. That made him very sad, since he thought for sure Boxcars would’ve believed him.

But as time went on, Deuce saw a lot of familiar faces in the bubbles, and they travelled together. Most of the Felt, he came across within a few days, and after they all decided they were dead, Crowbar suggested there was no point in fighting anymore. Then when Droog and Clover showed up, it was just a reunion with another part of their weird family. Boxcars came next, after a while, and Deuce remembered he needed to tell them his message. It took Deuce a bit of convincing them, but he thinks that they saw they all did the best they could. After that, they had a lot more fun. A lot more.

Sure, Itchy liked playing mean pranks on Deuce, but Clover was always there to help him out of it, and Trace and Fin always helped him get back at the speedy leprechaun! The four of them became really, really good friends, even if some of the things Fin said went over his head. Boxcars spent a lot of time with Quarters and Cans, holding tea parties and wrestling with them a lot. They joked about how they should’ve done this when they were alive. Droog didn’t really warm up to the Felt as well as they did, but Deuce thought for sure he saw him playing cards one time with Sn0wman, Crowbar and Stitch. He was almost certain he saw a smile on the stoic man’s face when Stitch lost horribly. He knew he did hear laughing though.

Then, one day, the Felt vanished in the bubbles, leaving their family of 18 a family of four. Only Sn0wman stayed behind with them, but Droog seemed to cheer up about that while Deuce and Boxcars mourned the loss of their newest friends. Sn0wman asked him why he didn’t mind that Crowbar and the others were gone, and he just said ‘Because Slick’s got them.’ Droog never explained why he knew this. Not even after Sn0wman left them to try and find others they knew who died. Deuce was sad to see her go, but Droog made him feel a bit happier by pointing out they still had to wait for Slick.

So they did. Droog, Boxcars, and Deuce all wandered the bubbles together, to try and find times that Slick was asleep, or to just sit and wait for him to come home. They passed by Sn0wman sometimes, but never Slick. That was okay, though. Deuce knew they were doing the best they could.

And one day, he’d tell Slick what he found out. Maybe Slick would stop worrying about hindsight after that.


End file.
